A man has filed a lawsuit alleging Bishop John J. Jenik of the Bronx trafficked him to a pedophile working as a Catholic school counselor back in the 1980s.

Bishop Jenik was a priest when he allegedly sexually abused Shawn Ganley, who was 14 years old at the time. According to the lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Jenik also made it possible for ex-con Paul Gruber to commit sexual assault against Ganley.

Jenik purportedly knew that Gruber was a counselor who had sexually abused other students at Our Lady of Refuge School when Jenik asked Gruber to provide the young Ganley with an IQ test, claims the lawsuit.

According to the New York Post, court papers say “Jenik, knowing that Paul Gruber was a sexual assaulter of young boys, trafficked [Ganley] to Gruber when he assigned this predator to act as [his] guidance counselor.”

Gruber eventually was convicted of sex abuse after the parents of other alleged victims came forward. Around campus, the kids called the counselor “Gruber the Grabber.”

Ganley told the New York Post in July that back when the abuse was occurring, Jenik used angry, intimidating looks at the kids to bully them into keeping quiet about the sexual assaults.

Other Allegations of Sexual Abuse

Ganley was not the only man to come forth and accuse Jenik of sexual misconduct.

In November 2018, Michael Meenan, now 54, announced at a press conference that Jenik abused him for years during the 1980s when Meenan was between the ages of 13 and 17. Meenan said Jenik would take the then-boy on trips to a country home that Jenik owned in upstate New York. Meenan said he remembers Jenik allegedly groping him when they were in bed, reported Cruxnow.com.

“[Jenik] began taking me on and spending time with me as a means of cultivating a relationship that was immoral, inappropriate, and in some instances illegal,” said Meenan, who also called the experience, “the greatest evil I have witnessed in my lifetime.”

The Lay Review Board of the Archdiocese of New York decided “the evidence is sufficient to find the allegation credible and substantiated” after reading through Meenan’s allegations against Jenik.

Bishop Jenik Removed from Public Ministry

The Catholic New York website reported Bishop Jenik was removed from public ministry in October 2018 after the Vatican determined a review of sexual abuse allegations was warranted. Jenik denied the claims.

Jenik was forced to step down as pastor at Our Lady of Refuge parish, which he had led since 1985. He became an auxiliary bishop in 2014.

Finally, in October 2019, Bishop Jenik turned in his resignation to Pope Francis. Jenik turned 75 years old, and canon law dictates that bishops resign at that age.

Child Victims Act Extended

The New York Child Victims Act that passed in 2019 included a one-year look-back window for survivors of sexual abuse to bring civil claims against abusers even in cases in which the statute of limitations had run out.

That look-back window was set to expire on Aug. 14, 2020, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo extended the deadline through Aug. 14, 2021 because the pandemic slowed the wheels of justice for several months earlier this year.

With the look-back window, the Child Victims Act allows many older adults who suffered sexual abuse as children to seek restitution from the perpetrators and the organizations that helped conceal the abuse.

There is one exception to Gov. Cuomo’s extension of the look-back window. Because the Diocese of Rochester is in the midst of a chapter 11 bankruptcy, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Paul Warren denied the request to extend the deadline for any claims against it.

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.